Monster party by the children from Rawa Community School with Alison Lester and Jane Godwin

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Magabala Books, 2018. ISBN 9781925360554
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Monster party is a book co-created by the wonderful Alison Lester and Jane Godwin, alongside the middle primary children who attend the Rawa Community School in the Pilbara region.
After some quick internet research I found that this project occurred in 2017 and was aimed at increasing the students skills in creative writing and art making.
The story follows a funny band of monsters who come out from the ground to visit the children, keeping them awake with lots of noise and crazy activities.
Each page has a monster that has been designed and created by the children, matching the verbs within the text and showing lots of different facial features and body shapes.
The text is written in rhyme, making it very easy to read to younger listeners and easy to ready by older siblings or children around the age of 6.
My favourite pages say 'There's a happy smiling monster, one that's like a mouse, and a complicated monster that looks like Yapu's house'. The illustrations are bright and vibrantly coloured and the monsters faces are happy and not scary like we are usually accustomed to.
My two children, aged 4 and 8, both enjoyed different aspects of the book. Miss 4 liked the pictures and pretending to be a monster whereas Master 8 liked the rhyming and big words like 'galumphing', 'slobbering' and 'prowls'. It was also a great book for role play and silliness - lots of crazy noises and moves to be had when reading this book.
A fun and easy book to read, 4 out of 5.
Lauren Fountain

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